Examination of Witnesses (Questions 65
- 79)
WEDNESDAY 23 JANUARY 2002
MR PAUL
COTTRELL, MS
NATALIE FENTON,
AND PROFESSOR
RUSS BOWMAN
Chairman
65. You are very welcome. I noticed that you
were present for the first part, so you know the format. You are
very welcome indeed, and I think it is very appropriate that you
follow on from the last set of witnesses. Ms Fenton, Mr Cottrell
and Professor Bowman, we do know each other from way back, welcome;
it is a pleasure to have you here. And we will ask you some questions,
but you may like just to say, for a couple of minutes, something
about why you feel it is important for you to be here?
(Mr Cottrell) Thank you very much, Chairman,
and thank you for the opportunity to come along and give evidence
to you. Can I start by saying that we support very strongly the
idea that research should be distributed on the basis of the quality
of the research, and that it should be peer reviewed; and, insofar
as that is an objective of the RAE, we support it very strongly.
However, we do have some very serious concerns about the way in
which the RAE has developed. I think these fall, really, into
three groups. One is our concern about the over-concentration
of research funding in universities, which has been brought about
by the highly selective RAE system, and we think that what that
has done is to allocate research funding very narrowly, so that
the research funding available is narrower than the spread of
the talent. And we are concerned, therefore, that many very good
academics, with very strong research potential, are being deprived
of the opportunity even to get onto the bottom rung of the research
ladder; and we have some suggestions about how that position might
be rectified. The second area of concern is the current situation,
which is the failure to fully fund the outcome of the Research
Assessment Exercise; and already we are getting a very strong
message from our members that this is having an extremely demoralising
and demotivating effect on many of them. And, thirdly, we are
very concerned about some aspects of the fairness and openness
of the system, particularly the way in which it affects certain
groups of our members, particularly young members and, to a large
extent, female members. And, as far as the openness of the system
is concerned, we find it very difficult to get hard data about
the way in which it is working and the effects that it is having
on the system.
66. Thank you very much indeed. If Ms Fenton
or Professor Bowman want to add anything, at any time, just indicate
and we will take you in, but we will try to keep it moving along,
as long as you get your points over, and do not short-circuit
the whole process. Do you think that RAE 2001 has given a fair
assessment of UK universities; can we look at that and say we
know everything about what is happening in universities now, in
terms of the standards, and so on, because of that Exercise, or
do you think it is just so biased? What do you really think of
this Exercise that has come through?
(Professor Bowman) I think, first of all, it is unusual
to agree with HEFCE on many issues, but I think actually there
has been quite a dramatic increase in research standards and productivity.
Now I think we would be very churlish if we did not congratulate
our members, and non-members, who have worked extremely hard,
and I think harder than most people and the public would like
to realise. Two of the colleagues here will know, because they
have been in a university themselves, people work very long hours,
have very little holiday, with this target of research, and people
are driven by their research, extremely hard work, while still
having a lot of time and respect for students, research students,
researchers; and I think people will be devastated to find that
these improvements they have worked so hard for will not be fully-funded
by the Government.
67. My question that follows on automatically
then is: has the RAE been really the driving force in raising
these standards, in your opinion?
(Professor Bowman) Yes. There is a point that RAE
has done some very positive things; I am not sure how long it
will carry on doing so. I think perhaps the early RAEs produced
more positive results than the present one, and I think continued
RAEs will increase the damage. It is a balance of benefits and
damages, and I think perhaps the balance is now going in the wrong
direction.
68. Could you give us an example of that, Ms
Fenton, perhaps—a concrete example of how it has improved?
(Ms Fenton) Yes; sure. It is impossible to overestimate
the driving force, in terms of the culture of a department, that
the RAE has; so it focuses completely a department's attention
on a particular end sight, because that is the only way, it is
the only multiplier, if you like, at the moment, they have control
over. So, in terms of actually going out there and getting in
more funding to the departments, they do everything they possibly
can, strategically, within that unit, to do it; and that will
mean that will have negative impacts on the teaching culture of
the department, because teaching is not prioritised and research
is. And a direct example of that, from my own department, which
has done very well, 5*A, we have done very well because we have
ensured that students get less contact time, `one to few' teaching
is minimised dramatically, any extra teaching above a certain
level is done by contracted-out staff; so it has direct implications,
actually, for the quality of the teaching, or the learning experience,
of those students. So the driving force, although you cannot make
a direct correlation between the level of scientific activity,
for example, you can make a direct correlation to the actual levels
of productivity and concentration within departments.
Chairman: Thanks very much.
Dr Turner
69. In your own memorandum, you say that the
RAE has become "a colossal exercise in terms of staff and
resources", although HEFCE maintain that it costs only 0.8
per cent of available funds, which they say is not too bad for
a bidding or tendering process. Do you really accept this, or
what do you think is the real cost, certainly to your members?
(Professor Bowman) I am quite happy to answer. The
cost is much larger, and the instrument, the CVCP, now, and UUK,
estimate, in the last RAE, that it cost between 2 and 3 per cent
of the total university budget nationally, because it is not just
the cost of actually paying the peers on the various panels and
the back-up work for them, it is the cost of each individual university,
the management of each university, the management of departments
and colleagues in the department; a huge amount of time. It is
very hard to cost it accurately, obviously, but the time is enormous.
And it is an interesting point, if that 2½ per cent were
given to the system, that may actually help to ameliorate some
of the problems.
Chairman: Could you estimate the paperwork from
a department, for example, in tonnage, or any other measure you
would make, in chemical terms, if you like?
Dr Turner
70. Or in trees?
(Professor Bowman) I think a good few forests hit
the dust.
(Ms Fenton) We have already started; and one concrete
example. Immediately the last RAE results were announced, in our
department we started, the very next day, the paperwork trail
for the next one, even though we do not know whether there will
be one.
71. The outcome of the RAE seems to bear a very
close resemblance to the sort of profile of success of Research
Council grant patterns. How would you feel about doing away with
the RAE and having a mechanism for doling out the HEFCE money
that was based on the Research Council profiles?
(Mr Cottrell) We would be very strongly opposed to
that, Chairman, because we think that that would increase the
concentration of research funding even more. It is still the case
that some of the funding goes a little bit more widely than the
top departments, and if we ended the dual support system, which
essentially is what would be involved, then we think that almost
all the money would go to the top 12-15 universities, and that
would change the system significantly, in ways which we think
would be very negative.
72. That is a fair point, but what we have got
here is a process of which you are being highly critical; the
simple alternative, you think, is, if anything, worse. How do
you propose to resolve this with a process which is less demanding,
has less downside, in terms of administration and distorting of
the work of universities, and yet produces a fair result?
(Mr Cottrell) We would like to see a number of measures
taken. First of all, we would like to see a postponement of the
next RAE. We think that the selective funding has gone far enough
and that the system should be allowed to settle down for a period.
So, in fact, in our submission leading up to the current RAE,
we suggested that it should be postponed for ten years; but we
certainly would not want to see a repeat in five years, we can
see very little value in that. When it is repeated we would like
to see the formula changed so that the funding allocation is smoothed,
so that the steps are not so great between the different grades;
that would help to spread the research money somewhat further.
And we would also like to see the setting up of a seed-corn fund,
which would be restricted to those departments that did not enter,
or that scored 1s or 2s in previous RAEs, in order to give their
best researchers the opportunity to get onto, as I said before,
the first rung of the research ladder, to get to a point where
they are able to attract funding from outside, from Research Councils
and from other funders. And we think that that would solve a lot
of the problems that we face currently, that have already been
mentioned, to do with researchers going into a smaller number
of universities, the best researchers, and, in the long term,
if you believe that there is some relation between teaching and
research, would also strengthen teaching.
73. Now you have been critical of the fact that
DfES has not fully funded RAE 2001, and you have also criticised
the fact that they are still maintaining that funding for the
5* departments, but only the 5* departments. What would you have
done, given the grade increases that have emerged?
(Mr Cottrell) I think that we would probably have
gone for what HEFCE was originally threatening to do, which was
to distribute on the basis of the existing grades, rather than
the new ones. Now that, too, would have caused problems, many
of our members would have been very critical of that, because
some of them will have lost out. But I think it is consistent
with our general approach to this, that what we do not want is
a system which raises expectations, which creates all the work
that Professor Bowman has described, and then disappoints people;
we see that as extremely unfair. The Government is very committed
to the RAE, it is committed to it for a number of reasons, one
of which I believe is a political one, that is that it has succeeded
in protecting some of the best research, and we have not had constant
headlines of top research groups and Nobel Laureates leaving the
country and going to America, or wherever. So it has had some
political success, in protecting some of the best research. But
we are now into a situation where we have a Government committed
to a system but not agreeing to fund the outcome, and we think
that is completely unacceptable. And so, therefore, if you put
us on the spot, I think we would say that we would prefer the
funding to have been allocated on the basis of the existing RAE
scores from the last RAE, which is also consistent with our view
that the current one should have been postponed.
(Ms Fenton) We are also in the business of protecting
our members' jobs, obviously, and that analysis, or that way of
allocating the funding, would have allowed us to say, well, at
least it sustains the current staffing profile within departments.
We are now faced with the situation where we are already getting
massive concerns over restructuring, which basically means delivering
redundancies, whether voluntary or compulsory, on a certain level,
and the numbers of staff involved, when you look at the cut of
15 per cent, and 30 per cent, in those 5- and 4-graded departments,
is enormous. And that is going to create massive work for us,
and huge distress, actually, across the system.
74. I was just going to ask the reaction to
the extra £30 million from DfES to fund the 5s?
(Mr Cottrell) Yes, Chairman; well, obviously, we would
welcome any additional funding. But you have heard, from HEFCE's
evidence, what is the extent of the cuts that we will still face;
and that money is helpful but, clearly, it does not solve the
problem.
Mr Hoban
75. Just to follow on from the point that Ms
Fenton raised, about the level of redundancies, or potential job
losses, in the university sector, as a consequence of RAE. Given
the Government's stated aim to increase participation in higher
education to 50 per cent, surely, people who were doing research
are going to be shuffled across to do teaching? Is not your concern
about staff redundancies misplaced?
(Professor Bowman) If I can answer that. I am also
active in the local AUT community, as well as being an academic,
and, with devolved financing, which is common throughout the sector,
if a department does not meet its budget, staff go, one way or
another, usually generously, with early retirement or relocation;
increasingly, as the room for manoeuvre by local management declines,
or has disappeared, by redundancies. And you often are making
redundant people in the prime of their career, who are world-leading
researchers, teachers, sometimes snapped up by industry, sometimes
not, and the amount of distress to colleagues is enormous. Every
university in the country, if you look at the levels of stress,
breakdowns, it is really quite scary; my own GP, just to mention,
never used to see an academic with stress, and now it is one of
his main groups, in a small town, Loughborough, that he now has
to worry about, and people are desperately trying to meet all
these things. The problem is, if the money does not come in under
RAE, the department will not have the money, and university management
is obliged, or feels they are obliged, actually to shed staff.
And if I can just stress, the productivity of staff now is absolutely
at a maximum, it cannot go any higher, you can work only 50 to
60 hours a week, with little holiday; you cannot expect people
to work harder than that, without personal problems of breakdowns
in family, not looking after their children properly, etc. There
is a real point of break now, where it cannot go any further,
and there is not any leeway left in the system. Most universities,
even leading, Russell group ones, are running into severe financial
trouble. So there are real problems for the Government to address.
(Ms Fenton) I think, in response to your question,
there is not enough slack in the system to say, "Oh, well,
you're not being returned in the RAE, you'll concentrate your
efforts in teaching." They cannot do that. The people who
go are the people who are not returned in the RAE.
76. But, surely, the increase in student participation
that Government is keen to see will lead to more funds coming
into universities; that will absorb some of the people in the
university sector that are labelled research-inactive?
(Ms Fenton) There will not be enough. If the expansion
is on predicted rates, say, their lowest estimate, 400,000 extra
students coming in, the current staffing profile is not sufficient
to teach that number of students, so they have to recruit more
people in. They have not got the funds to do that, to deliver
that increased participation.
77. Is there not a contradiction there, because,
actually, what we are saying is we need more university lecturers
to cope with the increased participation; so, actually, the reclassification
from research to inactive research will help meet some of the
staffing needs of the future?
(Ms Fenton) I do not see how on earth that is possible.
(Professor Bowman) Can I just comment. You are the
Science Select Committee, and if you look at the figures of the
number of students selecting scientifically-related subjects,
science and engineering, it carries to decline, very worryingly;
my own subject, chemistry, at 7.5 per cent down this year, and
other physical sciences down 15 per cent. So if the research money
coming in is not in these departments, they are not being backed
by increases, then that should be something that is very worrying
to the Government. It is essential to the economy of this country
that we have a large number of very able science and engineering
graduates coming through, and that is a decline of some concern,
partly related to the pressure of the RAE. So it is not that you
can have a civil engineer going to teach media studies, because
civil engineering is not a popular subject. So there are problems
related to RAE, which we have not yet touched on, of what encourages
and brings students into the system. And I think it is not necessarily
that the staff are excess in the areas where you would wish them.
78. I will ask one last question, moving on
from that topic. One of the questions we raised with the previous
set of witnesses was the issue of does the RAE encourage quick
publication of research, and is that, RAE, changing the way in
which people in universities do their research and bring it into
publication; do you think that is happening, do you think the
scene is speeding up?
(Professor Bowman) If I can answer; definitely, yes.
Although HEFCE has told us that it is four papers judged, everyone
who sits on the panel knows most of the people in that particular
community, so, professors reading my four papers, he does not
know what I am doing in the community; of course they do, and
we know them, they know everyone personally, so it does influence
them and the number of papers do count. Every manager in a university
is leaning on people to up their publication rate. The problem
there is that you may be on work that is perhaps unpopular. Academic
freedom is seriously at threat, blue-sky research, which may need
time to get off the ground, may never get off the ground, and
in five years you have got to produce. And this is one of the
reasons we are arguing for even the abandonment of the RAE, or
a much longer-term period, which will allow staff to challenge
these ideas and get them off the ground, without the threat of
"You must produce your five or ten papers a year." That
is a real situation.
(Ms Fenton) In addition to that, one of the real threats
I see to the science base is that some research that is genuinely
innovative and really very much new and at the cutting edge, actually,
some of that does not have an immediate publishable location,
it just does not have anywhere to go, for several years on. So,
actually, you really do discourage that. What you encourage is
more of that sort of clubby atmosphere, or you follow the herd;
or this is a particular trend, "We know this is interesting,
we know it will get published, we will pursue that." So it
does discourage better concentration of minds on doing generally
innovative work.
Mr Harris
79. I wanted to ask about the peer reviews;
you mentioned it in your opening comments, Mr Cottrell. You have
argued in the past that the peer review should "remain central
to any performance-based approach to research funding." Do
you actually have any criticisms of the way the peer review is
undertaken, as part of the RAE?
(Mr Cottrell) Yes. We support very strongly, Chairman,
the principle of peer review; the way in which it is applied in
the RAE does have a number of problems. In the past, certainly,
the composition of the panels has been an issue, and, I think,
to be fair to the funding councils, they have attempted to deal
with that issue, and there are more women, for example, on the
panels now. But we would argue that they should represent the
academic community more broadly, so that, for example, if you
look at the average age of the panels you find that they are very
old, and it could be argued that that reinforces the tendency
to favour conservative, tested and tried research, rather than
innovative and new areas of research. So we would certainly like
to see a much broader representation on the panels, so that it
is genuinely peer review, and not review of a small section of
the academic community.
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